What Was Christopher Reeve’s First Role — And Why Did He Have to Suddenly Quit It?
Christopher Reeve — subject of the documentary Super/Man:The Christopher Reeve Story, which is premiering on Max on December 7 at 8pm ET — nabbed his signature role of Superman very early in his career. But even before he was known as the Man of Steel, Reeve was turning heads on the small screen in his very first acting role on the CBS soap opera Love of Life.
Reeve’s passion for acting started in childhood; at age nine, he made his theatrical debut at the McCarter Theatre in his hometown of Princeton, New Jersey. Reeve continued performing throughout his adolescence, acting during his summer breaks from Cornell University. Eventually, Reeve decided he’d rather be on stage than in the Ivy League; during what would have been his final year at Cornell, Reeve applied to Juilliard. He got in, and figured out a way to complete his senior year requirements at Cornell while beginning his Juilliard schooling (his classmate, Robin Williams, became a lifelong friend).
However, Juilliard isn’t free, even for Superman. So, in search of funds, Reeve decided to audition for a soap opera. He landed the role and made his television debut on Love of Life on July 30, 1974, playing Ben Harper.
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He was cast during a time when the show, which had premiered in 1951, was losing viewers; a set of younger characters were introduced to spice up the then-23-year-old sudser. Reeve’s character, Ben, was the son of Meg Aleata Hart from her marriage to her first husband, Charles Harper. Known as “Beanie” as a child, Ben had been off the canvas for 12 years before he returned in the form of the dashing Reeve. In a letter to the editor of Daytime TV dated July 17, 1974, the show’s associate producer described Ben as a “ski instructor (actually ski bum), handsome, charming, sexy, masculine and thoroughly amoral.”
As the son of Meg, who from the show’s first episode was portrayed as a calculated villainess, Ben was a chip off the old block. He regularly engaged in dastardly deeds, like marrying the virginal Betsy Crawford to get his hands on a small fortune, even though he was already wed to the sexy Arlene Lovett. Despite Ben’s evildoings, Reeve was popular with viewers, and while he was initially promised a lighter schedule so he could continue his studies, he wound up working more than he initially anticipated.
In 1976, Reeve, who was still under contract, landed a prominent gig playing the grandson of Katharine Hepburn in the Broadway production of A Matter Of Gravity. Reeve had an “out” in his contract that allowed him to take six weeks off to do another project, but needed eight for the play. He asked the powers-that-be at Love of Life for the extra two weeks, but they refused. Unsure of how to proceed, the young actor turned to costar John Aniston (yes, father of Friends’ Jennifer!), who played Eddie Aleata, for advice.
Everett Collection
“He was all bent out of shape because this was a plum role,” the late Aniston relayed during an interview with TelevisionAcademy.com. “And he was in a dilemma and didn’t know what to do. And I said, ‘Chris, do you want to be a soap opera actor for the rest of your life?’ And he said ‘No.’ One of his big worries was that it was a bad play, and that he’ll come off looking bad, and I said, ‘As far as the producers in Hollywood know, you were the lead in a play on Broadway opposite Katharine Hepburn. That’s it. And you can take that to the bank.’ And sure enough, that’s exactly what happened.”
Reeve left Love of Life and two years later became a household name when he flew onto screens across America as the title character in Superman.
1974 (50 Years Ago)
January 2024
In this time capsule issue of ReMIND Magazine we look back 50 years ago to 1974!
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